Brennan: Florida State gives way to 'Jameis State'

The embarrassment continues unabated at Florida State, a school that has put the need to win football games above all else, including an alleged rape, a Title IX violation and, pending an investigation, an NCAA rule that some schools still actually follow.

The amazingly still-eligible Jameis Winston is preparing for the big Notre Dame game Saturday as if all of that — as well as stealing crab legs from a Publix and soda from a Burger King, firing a BB gun at his apartment complex and making a spectacle of himself yelling a vulgar phrase while standing on a table in the student union — never happened.

It must be so much fun to be a Florida State fan right now, living inside that morality-free bubble that fits so snugly over the campus in Tallahassee. Your young and impressionable football coach, Jimbo Fisher, believes every single word Winston has to say about signing autographs, because Jameis is just so, well, so incredibly believable.

An allegation of rape? Come on. That's old news now. When you mishandle it this bad for this long, nearly two years, you might as well just forget about it entirely, right, Seminoles? Plus, that's what civil lawsuits are for.

And all those autographs Winston signed and for which he of course didn't get paid one penny? After 22 months of successfully stiff-arming scandal, why stop now? Don't be cautious like Georgia and even Texas A&M. Roll the dice. Worst case scenario, should you win another national title and have to give it up someday because Winston actually might not be telling the truth, everyone would know you won it on the field, and lost it later to the despised NCAA. So that almost counts as a win-win, right?

As lost in the wilderness as Florida State and its fans are at the moment, perhaps even they would admit that it's officially awful when Texas A&M's handling of anything involving Johnny Manziel is seen as taking the moral high ground compared to what your school is doing.

Of course, to the world outside FSU, it's just one more mile post down the road to that special place in 21st century athletics where universities' reputations go to die.

"Free Shoes University," meet "Jameis State."

It's hard to imagine an entire university led by supposedly intelligent people who don't wear football helmets turning into sycophants for one sports team, but that's exactly what has happened before our eyes at Jameis State.

Instead of conducting an investigation into the alleged rape many months ago, as federal guidelines say must be done, Florida State joined with Barney Fife and the rest of the Tallahassee Police Department to bury or ignore the serious charges until they bubbled to the surface at the worst possible moment, during last year's national title and Heisman Trophy run.

Delaying and obfuscating all the way, Jameis State won its national title and Heisman. Now, finally, the school says it's moving ahead on a disciplinary hearing for Winston, but an attorney advising Winston is having none of that, throwing FSU's inaction right back at the school, saying the proceedings are "untimely."

You can say that again.

So now Winston is going to use the foot-dragging that kept him eligible in 2013 to buttress his case against the school in 2014. That's some kind of chutzpah.

Let's play this out. Accustomed to thriving in the midst of total controversy, Jameis State plays well enough to make the inaugural college football playoff. Jameis Himself doesn't win another Heisman but finishes the bowl season as the starting quarterback. He then escapes to the NFL just as the school sanctions him for a period of time that no longer has any meaning.

As for the alleged leaders of Jameis State, they finally realize what they have done and in their shame turn a collective shade of garnet. Nothing like being true to your school.